Anatomy of Magic
by Maeriai1121
Summary: Megan Rose Fairfield grew up with the Doctor's stories. But she never expected him to show up one day, stumbling down her street.
1. Part 1: Piece 1

**Part 1: The Set-Up**

**Piece One**

A clap of thunder, the sky alight, and the air is moist and warm through her bedroom window. Half the covers lie on the floor and the ruffled hem of her nightgown is up around her hips. She sighs quietly in her sleep, twitching gently.

A sudden gust of wind, the window slams shut, and she jerks awake with a startled cry. She clutches at the mattress for a moment, chest heaving, eyes wide in the dark, before bringing a hand to her chest and listening to the night.

The rain patters against the window in a steady drumroll that isn't really individual sounds anymore, but one long hiss.

A car passes, the fan overhead whirrs busily, her father snores down the hall. And something else. She leans forward onto her knees, closer to the one window that's still open, her messy braid swinging over her shoulder with the motion. A low rumbling, but not a plane or an idling truck.

She frowns, slips out of bed. Her nightgown falls back around her ankles and she hums softly to herself, a winding little nonsense tune, as she pads across her bedroom and down the stairs. The tune doesn't echo in the stairwell, instead falling mutely into the dark, accompanied only by the whisper of her feet against the floor and her hand trailing against the wall.

She stands in front of the door, her humming fading as she concentrates on the sounds just outside her house. That rumbling, louder now, and running footsteps. A small cursing mumble. She nods, stepping forward definitively. She throws the lock and catches up the brass cane from beside the door in one motion, swings open the door and steps through it in the next.

The wind rips her nightgown around her legs as she stands on her doorstep, rain soaking through her. An annoyingly familiar kind of high-pitched electronic whine is echoing off the houses and the footsteps are skidding to a stop, sliding in the rain. She can just see the dark shape of a man through the sheeting rain, holding something up in front of his face.

The rumbling is echoing through her bare feet and there's a dark shape standing in front of the man and it might be the rain or it might be something else, but she can't quite make out what it looks like. It moves closer to him and he takes a startled half-step back, fidgeting with the thing in his hands.

She blinks rain out of her eyes and when she can see again, only the man stands in the street before her house. Something dark and glistening washes down the storm drain in great sweeps of rainwater, but it may just be the pavement. She lets the cane fall down through her hand to touch the ground, startled.

The ting of metal against concrete echoes against the house across the way and he looks up at her. She freezes, all pale against the night, and suddenly feels very cold.

Then he turns away, leaving only the impression of a fleeting grin of white teeth in the dark.


	2. Part 1: Piece 2

**Piece Two**

The thunder rumbles and a crackle of flickering cloud-lightning lights up the street for only a few seconds. Just long enough to turn blood a horrifying red, stark in the half-light, and wash out a brown coat and soaked brown hair.

She's off the front step, flying barefoot across the front lawn before her eyes even adjust to the dark again. It isn't the blood that draws her to his side.

He stumbles and she catches him.

"Come into the house." Her voice is cajoling, close enough to his ear to be quiet. "You're bleeding."

Water falls in drips onto the entry carpet as she closes the door and helps him with his coat. Blood falls in equal measure from the cuff of one pants leg and the ripped side of his suit jacket and shirt. She mumbles worriedly and leads him to the bathroom, hitting the light on and motioning for him to sit on the toilet.

When she pads back to the bathroom with towels and the first aid kit in hand, his trainers are on the rug and his jacket is slung across the back of the toilet. He's rolled up the soaked cuffs of his pants and is in the process of unbuttoning his shirt as he looks up at her. She pauses, struck by a sudden desire to hug him very tightly and not let go. It really was him, sitting in her bathroom. And bleeding.

She shakes herself mentally and moves to sit on the floor beside him, her nightgown making a damp sound on the tile as she does so. He winces as she moves his foot into her lap, examining his leg, but doesn't say anything. There's a messy cut, but it's shallow despite snaking up towards his knee. She tends to it gently, humming a vaguely familiar tune that he almost recognizes as he leans against the wall.

"There now." She pats his foot, moving up onto her knees before him. His eyes are half-closed and he's making a wet spot on the wall. She frowns and jostles his knee just enough that his eyes open again. "Dry your hair, since you'll need your arm up anyways." He takes the towel, yawning, and she makes quick work of the last few buttons, pushing his shirt aside to survey the damage done.

Prodding gently at his ribs, she glances up at his face, but he's fallen asleep with the towel between his head and the wall. She shakes her head and smiles fondly, cleaning blood off of the shallow cut along his side. Some antiseptics and he'll be fine, just fine.


	3. Part 1: Piece 3

**Piece Three**

Everything smells very slightly of peppermints.

"Hello."

She mumbles, half-asleep complaints that don't make it past the duvet her head is buried in, and forces herself to blink blearily and push herself up. "Mama?"

"No, dear."

The voice, she realizes as she blinks sleep out of her eyes and her mind, is vaguely British. She groans, pushing herself up the rest of the way to lean heavily against the wall. There isn't anyone in her room besides the safely asleep man beside her. "Hello?" Her voice trembles a little and she blames it on just having woken up.

"I'm not there, _not as you would think_. As she listens, as her mind shakes off the haze of sleep, the voice does indeed seem to bypass her ears entirely, becoming a sound with the disconcerting feeling of not actually having heard anything at all. _Don't think about it too hard, please, it's still sorting itself out._

"What?" A sudden burst of frustration that isn't her own overwhelms her for a moment. She winces, swallowing hard and trying to calm the abrupt nausea. "Sorry, forget it, old girl." She speaks absently, already distracted by the slightly pink countenance of the man beside her. He's snoring very quietly.

_Old girl?_ The voice is quiet, confusion and speculation a slight fuzz at the back of her mind as she leans over him, blanching.

"Does he look flushed?" She places her wrist on his forehead. "Oh god, does he have a fever?"

_Unfortunately, yes. I need your help._ The voice speaks to, at once, the young woman and an empty room. An irritated sigh later, she's back, pressing a cold cloth to the man's forehead. A small first aid kit is in her hand and she's working open the buttons on his borrowed shirt quicker than she can mumble curses under her breath.

Angry streaks of red flare outward from the swollen red streak that yesterday night had been a bleeding cut. Her fingers dart lightly over the wound, never quite touching it, mumbling to herself all the while. "Infection? Activated the innate immune system, despite the antiseptics…no. Poison? Bloody man had to resonate the thing out of existence, of course, idiot doctor." She huffs, ignoring the murmuring at the back of her mind with a dismissive wave as she worms a thermometer between his lips. "Perhaps something to bring the fever down, and the swelling, antibiotics perhaps? But for what…."

_LISTEN, Megan Rose Fairfield._ Her floor, she has time to think, is a good deal further from her bed than she had ever realized. Then her mind is full of calculations she doesn't even recognize the math for and one long convoluted explanation she isn't sure makes sense. For a moment, she lies on the floor and stares at the ceiling. The nausea is threatening to force her stomach up her throat and there's something warm and thick trickling down her cheek.

Perhaps it would have been better to go back to sleep and never have opened that door. She wonders if she'll be thinking that for the rest of her life.


	4. Part 2: Piece 1

**Part 2: The Pledge**

**Piece One**

It's still raining softly and her light tanktop is soaking through as she pushes through over-grown reeds and grasses on a path that was barely there before the summer storm. She's out of breath from dashing out of the house without a second thought and her hair is messy again, falling in sopping strands around her face, but the rain is at least washing the last few streaks of blood off her face.

"Swear to god," she mumbles angrily, "Bloody awful sense of humor the both of you." No response floats into her mind, leaving her startlingly to herself as she huffs and ducks under the bowing limb of a tree. "Should've been out here somewhere."

She stumbles into a puddle, arms flying out to steady herself as she slips and falters before regaining her balance and heaving a sigh, the water uncomfortably lukewarm over her toes. She grins sardonically, takes another step forward. "And yet, I'm still out here looking."

It takes another few twists of the path, over a patch of brambles that she stumbles through and catches her ankle in, under a fallen tree serving as a pipeline for the rain, before she rounds the last corner and sees it. So out of place in this wood behind her neighborhood and yet so utterly normal, this blue police box sitting neatly in the shade of a large pine. She shakes her head, laughing slightly for no reason at all, and moves forward to push open the door, thinking that perhaps she's developing a bad habit of opening doors.

For a moment, she stands in the open doorway, gaping. _Close the door, there's a draft._ There is far too much self-satisfied humor in the voice and she glares at the glowing blue column in the center of the room but closes the door even so.

Silence falls for a moment, accentuating the quiet pulsing hum that seems to run through the walls, and she takes in the room with a faint smile. A huff of laughter and she shakes her head, slipping off her shoes and nudging them towards the coat rack off to one side. "Well now, where'd you put my patient after you went and stole him out from under my nose?

Her tone is too brisk, and she can feel the contemplation trickling in like ice water at the back of her thoughts. It's awfully unsettling and for a moment, her mind drifts enough to wonder how the others ever managed the intrusion. Nigh instantly, the nearly-voice fills her mind, abrupt and only barely drowning out the flash of something almost bitter she can't quite identify. _Infirmary, turn left down the corridor and it's the second door on the right._

It almost felt like guilt.

But she's already out the door across the room, following the directions with quick striding steps, brushing the observation aside in her haste.

She's leaning over the infirmary sink washing her hands when it truly begins to hit her how odd the whole thing is…and isn't, at the same time.

After all, she thinks, drying her hands automatically, hadn't she always thought that somewhere out there, he had to be real?

Hadn't she always believed it, wished it so? And didn't wishes ever so often come true?

But those were fairystories, she argues with herself, opening the kitchen cabinet, the stuff of children's playtimes and certainly not true. Nothing a grown woman ought to be considering as fact.

And yet it cannot be argued that she did not find herself this very morning talking to someone who wasn't there and chasing suddenly vanishing men into police boxes.

Odd, she sighs and sits down at the table, had long since been passed by with a cheerful wave and it was better now to just go along with it all in the hopes that at some point things would begin to make some sort of scientific sense.

She nods firmly, mind more settled, and takes a sip of her tea. Only to draw back a second later and stare at it in confused alarm. When had she gotten a cup of tea?

She sits on the floor beside the console, one leg stretched out in front of her as she leans back awkwardly to reach inside one of the panels. "Oh, well, that is loose." She huffs, twisting to get a better angle. "Can I unplug this here, will you be alright? I wouldn't ask, only it'd be much easier to untangle unplugged."

_I can reroute through another panel, it'll be just fine._ The woman's voice sounds pleased, affectionate even, and she smiles happily as she unplugs several cables. Her fingers working out kinks and tangles in the delicate cabling, she sighs comfortably and hums a note. After a moment of consideration, she begins to sing quietly, a quiet country kind of meso-soprano filling the room in a way she hadn't expected.

"Don't you worry there my honey, we might not have any money but we've got our love to pay the bills." One idly tapping foot keeps time as she sings to herself. She sounds more like her mother every day, singing that song, and for a moment the thought makes her heart ache.

She pauses for breath, sighs, and notes that the rain she can just barely hear (but only here in the console room, how odd) pattering against the TARDIS is tapering off. She will have to leave with the rain's end, she thinks. It would be unwise, unrealistic, to stay, and she has done her part to get him well and back on his feet. After all, if her suspicions are correct, he does not belong in her world at all, but in one ever so slightly different and just to the left or so. And he has said many times that people from one world are not supposed to be in any other.

She shakes her head, rousing herself from her reverie, and slots the cables back into place. "There we are, good as new." She pushes the panel cover back on and smiles, patting it gently before sitting up and stretching the kinks out of her back.

"Hello."

She freezes, arms still stretched up above her head, looking up towards the hall, and gapes for a moment. He smiles, the gesture so familiar, and she hesitates a small smile back. "Hello. You're awake!" Her tone comes easy, cheerful and comfortable, and suddenly she finds herself grinning at him genuinely as she lowers her arms and pushes herself up to stand.

"Good, I was afraid you wouldn't wake up before the rain stopped and I left. I asked the TARDIS where you kept the umbrellas but she wouldn't tell me so here I am. Oh, and I borrowed a shirt, hope you don't mind, sorry." She gestures to herself, to the loose dark green blouse he only half-recognizes, and abruptly realizes that she's babbling. "How do you feel?"

He breathes a slight laugh, smile twitching into a grin. "Good. Thank you. I don't remember last night very well, but you've obviously patched me up better than I would've managed."

She can't hear the rain anymore. "You're welcome." She casts a glance around, smoothing out her blouse anxiously. "Well, then. I should be going." She steps up to him, squeezing his hand gently before turning away with a smile and stepping neatly out the door.

He stands for a moment in the doorway of the empty console room, one eyebrow inching upwards in confusion, before gaping at the blue column. "What?"


	5. Part 2: Piece 2

**Piece Two**

The sun is dipping lower in the sky as he shifts awkwardly, feeling underdressed in just a loosely buttoned shirt and pair of pants he didn't wear often, and knocks on the door. There's a brief scuffle of motion from somewhere inside the house, and the sound of the lock being thrown, before the door swings open to reveal the young woman he's looking for.

She stands there and stares at him for a moment before stepping silently to the side and gesturing for him to come in. He does so, moving to straighten his untucked shirt before wincing. She catches the motion as she turns and makes a worried noise in the back of her throat, unceremoniously wrapping her fingers around his wrist and dragging him towards the kitchen at the back of the house.

He blinks, letting her drag him to the counter and nudge him into sitting in one of the chairs there. She sighs, regarding him for a moment, and moves into the bathroom, nearly closing the door behind her. "You know, you shouldn't be up and about this much just yet. You're doing an admirable job of healing last I checked, but those scratches are deep and obviously still hurt." He hears a door open, the shake of pills in a bottle, and then the door closes again and she steps out of the bathroom, fingers wrapped around something in her palm.

"Here. Take these. I'll get you some water." She smiles gently, depositing the pills into his outstretched hand before pivoting away and moving to the cabinets. He watches her move, a slightly bemused smile on his face, but says nothing. Within moments, she presents him with a small cup and watches patiently as he swallows the pills.

"Now then, what was it you wanted, Doctor?" She pulls an apron out of a drawer and arches an eyebrow at him inquisitively, tying it behind her back. "After all, you ought to be headed home."

He shifts. "Yes. Well. About that. You can hear the Tardis." He stares at her awkwardly as if this explains everything. She stares back at him.

"Yes. Am I not supposed to or something?" She gestures vaguely, getting nervous. "I mean, I thought all the companions could hear her."

"Well. No." He pauses and she watches him, a smile creeping over her lips. She could practically see the gears turning. "Wait. You know me. You know her. How do you know me?"

"Parallel universe, honestly, I thought you were supposed to be clever, Doctor." She waves a hand dismissively. "She can explain the science better than I can and anyways why am I not supposed to hear her and how did that happen, exactly?"

_That would be my fault._ They both startle at the sudden interjection, looking up at each other before exploding into questions.

"How is it your fault?" "What did you do?!" She's confused, frowning, and he's all set for a fight, expecting the worst already. Later she'll wonder if he'd already figured it out at that point and was working through the consequences.

That feeling of echoed guilt was back as the older woman's voice responded. _I had no choice, Doctor, you needed someone to care for you and how was I going to explain things to her without doing this. I had no choice!_

"What did she do, Doctor?" Her voice is creeping up into a higher pitch despite her best efforts and she takes a step closer to the counter, needing the comfort. "What did she do to me?"

His face is bleak as he looks squarely at her. "She toyed with your genetics and made you something you weren't supposed to be." She's seen that expression before and it's the one he uses when he can't fix it, when he can't save the day this time.

She has one hand on the counter, holding herself steadfastly upright as her mind races, her breath coming shallow and quick. "She…She made me telepathic." He just nods, almost waiting for her to figure it out fully. "But I was fine, walking through the neighborhood, sitting here with you. I can't hear anything but her."

He sighs, running a hand over his face tiredly. "She's been shielding you, but that'll stop as soon as we go back and then what'll you do." He sighs again, then looks up at her with a mildly shocked expression on his face. "I don't even know your name and she's gone and made you telepathic."

She smiles half-heartedly and holds out a hand over the counter to him. "Megan Fairfield." He takes it and they shake hands, laughing a little even if it does sound more than a little nervous.

The front door opens.


	6. Part 2: Piece 3

**Piece Three**

It takes approximately one minute for her to storm back into the kitchen and start slamming things.

Her father stands for a moment, still looking a bit stunned, then moves to the liquor cabinet and pours himself a drink, slumping a little as he stands with his back to them both, one hand still on the neck of the bottle.

The Doctor winces at the clatter of metal in a vaguely amused kind of way, rather like one watches a cat toy with a mouse. Appalling and entertaining all at once. "Let me," he says as if her father was making any move to calm his daughter, and carefully slips out of his chair, moving into the kitchen as quietly as possible.

Her anger is giving him a headache and the back of her mouth tastes of peppermint. He moves to stand a step or two behind her, just out of her way, and waits patiently. She can feel him watching her and forces herself to breathe slowly, calming down slightly. He smiles slightly behind her back, feeling his headache ease back. Odd, he thinks, that the old girl has seen fit to connect him so thoroughly to her.

When she speaks, her tone is softer, more warm, than the harsh and clipped tones of argument. "Cup of tea, Doctor?" He agrees gently, feeling more at ease as the tension in the room disappears bit by bit. It's an odd tinge of talent, making the house go from calm to furious in two minutes flat, and he almost wonders how much the old girl actually did.

But, he reminds himself, he is watching this girl make tea. It's been a very long time indeed since he stood in a kitchen and watched someone else make tea. There's a quiet humming in the back of his mind, obviously coming from her but comforting all the same. The kettle is boiling and she pours two mugs, teabags floating to the surface. She smiles, turning and handing him his.

His fingers touch hers, and he jolts at the unexpected rush of sheer warmth and unidentifiable emotion. Her reaction, unused to any kind of mental invasion, is much stronger and he watches in stunned fascination as she takes a quiet shuddering breath, eyes closing, back arching slightly. Her eyes are still hazy as she looks up at him, flushing pink and he knows that his own are darker. It has been so long…

She licks her lips nervously, blinking, and removes her hand from his. "Ah, the water's boiling. What'd you think about pasta?" She turns away, trying desperately to return to something normal. She doesn't even want to think about what that just was, about her reaction to it.

"I think you need to learn control." His voice is lower, quieter, and something else she can feel them both avoiding whole-heartedly. She swallows hard and forces herself calm again.

"What about you, daddy? Pasta for dinner?"


	7. Part 2: Piece 4

**Piece Four**

"Give me a hug, Daddy, I'm all packed." She's been bouncing around the house all morning, cheerful and anxious at the same time. Her father smiles sadly and leans down to hug her obligingly.

"Are you sure about this, Megs?" It's been a week since she first rescued the Doctor and somehow no one feels prepared for this departure.

She laughs derisively, looking around for the Doctor. "No. And look, he's swanned off again." She sighs, leaning into her father tiredly. "I don't have a choice, he and I have both gone over it again and again and neither of us can come up with any options." It was true; they had gone through at least eight pots of tea, up late into the night talking it over.

Her father grins, squeezing her shoulder. "And if a Time Lord and the cleverest girl I know can't come up with it, it probably doesn't exist, right?" She laughs, agreeing, and he shakes his head. "But are you going to be okay, with him?"

"Of course. I've said it time and again that if he ever asked, I would go in a heartbeat even if it tore my life to bits." She rolls her eyes. "He's not asking, but this is a chance in a lifetime and honestly, what am I leaving behind other than you, Daddy?"

He smiles sadly and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Domestics. You promise to make the TARDIS bring you back if he's an ass, right? Can you…do that now?"

She laughs cheerfully at that, nodding. "Yup. No matter what, I think I'll always have the TARDIS." She leans back to look up the stairs at the blue box and when she speaks her tone is contemplative. "I think it's been a long time since she's been able to talk to anyone but him. She's lonely." She looks up at her father and smiles a bit distantly. "They both are."

"And you're going to save them, huh, Megs?" The question isn't mocking but stated as a natural assumption with a half-amused smile. She smiles sunnily and he sighs because she still looks so young.

She starts up the stairs and throws him a glance over her shoulder, only a little amused. "I'm nineteen." She pauses, grins. "And yes, I totally did just read your mind. Wicked. Anyways, come intimidate a Time Lord for me, Daddy."

Final goodbyes are quick and her bags are stacked just inside the door. She closes the door with a sigh and he's already going through the familiar motions of piloting the TARDIS. She goes to lean against the railing and smiles a little, suspecting that the overly dramatic piloting is more for something to do than anything else.

Then the familiar sound kicks in and the room spins with it. Everything feels so empty, the pressure in her mind beyond the shield gone, completely and suddenly. Her grasp on the railing loosens, her vision goes dark, and she falls, screaming.


	8. Part 2: Piece 5

**Piece Five**

"Oh, ow." The grating of the console room is hard underneath her as she pushes herself up, head pounding. "What was that?"

_The void._ The TARDIS sounds apologetic. _Sorry, I didn't think it would hit you so hard._

Megan curls up into a hunched ball, feeling unsteady. "It just felt so…empty. Just everything gone, all of a sudden. Shocked me, I suppose." She glances around the room half-heartedly, a bit surprised to find herself alone, purposely refocusing to rid herself of the dreadful cold and utter loneliness. "Where's he swanned off to, d'you know?"

_No idea._ Her tone is brisk, dismissing the question, and Megan sighs. The both of them are so dodgy about direct questions.

"I shouldn't be surprised." She grabs the railing and hauls herself up, feeling her head tenderly. It's a bit bruised and sore, but her fingers don't come back bloody. "Well, where am I staying?" She grins at the blue column, hands on her hips, so brisk and cheerful.

_You'll love this, come on._ It feels almost as if the old girl is going off down the hall and she smiles a little at the sensation and the impatience behind it.

"Alright, alright, let me get my things."

"What." Her bags are abandoned in the doorway as she steps slowly into the room with her mouth agape.

It's a bit larger than her room at home, all dark furniture and light blue walls, and it's absolutely perfect. There are bookshelves against the far wall just waiting for her collection, a small sofa in front of them upholstered in some kind of velvet material that's a darker shade of the wall color. There's a large desk that looks amazing for drawing on, and the bed is large and ornate without being ostentatious.

There's plenty of empty wall space just begging to be decorated with photos and sketches. It looks like a room that expects her to settle in, a room prepared for a permanent resident, a far cry from the white bedspreads and bookshelves Tegan and Peri got. She smiles and perches on the foot of the bed. "This is amazing. I never expected…thank you."

_Oh, this wasn't my doing._ There's a smile in her voice and Megan quirks a puzzled look at the ceiling.

"Surely the Doctor didn't…" But the TARDIS won't say another word and so Megan pushes the thought away, dragging her bags into her new room and beginning to unpack.

She finds the staircase an hour later when she's trying to put her shampoo away and opens the door to the left of her bed, not the one to her right. She opens the unremarkable door and blinks at the stairs curving off above her. They're narrow, with wall on either side, and she only hesitates a moment before dashing up the spiral.

It curves up into a rotunda, one full of a piano. She blinks at it for a second before turning her attention to the windows that line the room, window seats below each and every one of them. They give the impression of looking out onto an expansive garden.

As she kneels on the window seat, it slowly begins to drizzle outside the window. She arches an eyebrow at the glass and touches it experimentally. It feels cold and clammy to the touch, extremely realistic. "How does that even work?"

_Do you like it? Most of the gardens are like that, mood responsive._

"We have gardens?" She echoes, surprised, and slumps against the window frame. "I'm never going to get completely used to this, am I?"

_Think of it as an adventure._

"And really? A piano? I do not understand that man at all." She frowns at the instrument for a long moment before a slight smile creeps over her face. "It really is beautiful, though. And I always did want to learn how to play."


	9. Part 2: Piece 6

**Piece Six**

Megan quickly realizes that life aboard the Tardis will be different for her. That first night she doesn't see the Doctor at all and something within her cracks at his absence. She creeps into the kitchen to make a quick meal and hastens back to her room "to avoid imposing" as she tells the Tardis.

It strikes her as a bit cruel, to disappear so after a week of cheerful meals with her father and relaxed lessons in the all white room off the kitchen. He had been so nice, so normal, and then all of a sudden he leaves her alone, so alone.

They have lessons every day, but he never comes to fetch her from her room or reaches through their slight connection to touch her mind. The Tardis is always the one to tell her. He is brisk in their lessons, but he does put his fingers on her temple to help her and smiles at her when she is tired and worn.

She spends most of her time in her rooms, well practiced at keeping to herself, and slowly learns to play the piano. Her sketchbook is soon full of drawings, a few of which go up on the walls. She never draws her home, only his; delicate watercolors of the citadel and the mountains. He never sets foot in her room; she figures they'll never have to have the awkward conversation about why she's so enthralled with that deep orange sky.

The Tardis tries to tempt her out of her room with stories of the library and the gardens, promising that the Doctor wouldn't mind, but Megan is quite firm about boundaries and refuses to set foot in any space she hasn't expressly been given permission for.

Sometimes she wakes up late in the night to a slight pressure on her mind, a sure sign that they've left the void, and as she pulls on her robe the Tardis tells her about the planet he's landed them on this time, beautiful descriptions of oceans and cliffs, deserts and cities made out of trees. She pads into the console room hesitantly and fidgets with knobs and dials until the little screen shows her the surrounding scenery.

His coat is always gone from the rack and she never opens the door. Sometimes she falls asleep watching the little screen, listening to the frozen ocean of an alien world crackle or the hypnotic rustle of a desert planet's sand. The Tardis always wakes her up just before he comes back, sending her scurrying around the corner just as the door swings open. Megan doesn't want to get caught there, doesn't want to betray how lonely she is in her beautiful room.

He's just running errands, really. Little things here and there. Nothing very dangerous, just a lark. He always checks to make sure her mind is asleep, never wants to deal with her wanting to come along. He isn't quite ready to have a companion again.

But his touch on her mind is light, too light to pick up her carefully buried emotions, and so he doesn't know, cannot know how much every absence hurts her.

Until he opens the door, letting the afternoon sunshine stream into the console room from the forest planet (amazing, really, how they grew the cities up), and finds Megan sleeping there on the seats all curled up. One bare foot is hanging over the edge, almost touching the floor. He stops in the doorway, staring at her. Her hands are tucked up under her head, face tilted up as if to look at something.

He creeps closer, not bothering to close the door because truth be told he's enjoying the way the sun lights up her hair and makes her almost glow. The little screen on the console is showing video of the surroundings, the huge trees rustling in the breeze and the grown city rising out of the forest.

He leans up against the console, frowning at her. She woke, long enough ago to come out here and fall back asleep, but never came in search of him, never set foot outside. Instead she fell asleep watching video of the planet he was exploring?

She sighs quietly, stretching a little as her eyes blink open. She takes in the open door and the sunlight before she sees him and he listens to her anxiously question the Tardis. The old girl doesn't give away his presence, just lets Megan slip down and go over to the doorway. He watches sadly as she arranges herself carefully there, basking in the sunlight without actually being outside.

"Megan." She startles, spinning to face him and pressing guiltily up against the doorframe as he steps around the console.

"Doctor!" Her face is flushing and he notes with interest that the pink spreads all down her neck, wondering how far it goes. "Oh. Sorry, I'll just go back to bed." She reaches for the door, making to close it, and he takes the few steps over to stop her.

"Why don't you go put something on?" He's holding the door open without touching her, she's staring up at him with wide eyes. He's a good nine inches taller than her and he sees something like fear in the way she presses against the door away from him. He takes a step back, subtly, and presses reassurance through their tenuous bond.

Her reaction is instantaneous, eyes flickering closed as she visibly relaxes. He holds the connection for a moment longer than absolutely necessary, watches her hands clutch at the door behind her and her lips part just so. She never does this during lessons; he's too busy hurting her with his attempts to strengthen her mental talents to simply touch the girl's mind. A very small, very wicked part of him wonders about what exactly he could incite in her with a simple touch, if her reaction to a pleasant emotion is so strong.

He pulls back abruptly, jerking his head back towards the hall even as she draws a shuddering breath and refocuses. "Go on, then."

She doesn't look at him, just slips around him and hurries for the door.


	10. Part 2: Piece 7

**Piece Seven**

He holds her hand for the first time since they met as she steps down into the grass.

She seems fragile, her hand so little resting in his, her skin so very pale. He realizes that this dark silky little sundress is the first thing she's worn since he stole her away that isn't just a sweater and pants.

It's almost like that means something as she releases his hand and skips forward to look out over this new world.

He shuts the door behind them, noticing the absence of the old girl inside his head. She is leaving them entirely to themselves this time, and that might mean something as well. Women, he thinks, and grins a little as he moves to Megan's side.

She makes a happy little sighing sound and turns to look at him. They stand there for a moment, her studying his face quietly and him looking quizzically back at her, before she smiles just a little and turns to look back at the trees. "I know you're upset and that you don't want a companion…but thank you. This is amazing."

He isn't sure what she's saying thank you for. He hasn't been sure about much since she moved into his life.

He leaves her sitting there as the sun sets. "Come in when you like. I'll make tea."

She pulls her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on their tops, and sighs. For a long moment, she just frowns and stares at the sky. Then she lets herself fall backward to lie there in the grass and sighs heavily.

"It can't be this easy, can it, mama?"

The sky is turning a light pink kind of orange as she lies there and watches it. She wonders if Gallifrey's sky ever went pink at sunset, wonders what her mother would've said about this turn in her life. When she was young, she always thought she would get through college and get a nice old house and eventually acquire a boyfriend and spend sunny days painting her house bright colors. Maybe someday she would get married and have kids and things would be happy and pretty normal and good.

She had never thought she would be lying in the grass of an alien world thinking of home as a blue box. But somehow it is. _Because he's here._ She sighs deeply, mostly to herself though she knows the Tardis is probably listening in on her head and pushes herself up.

She stands there brushing grass off of her dress, and smiles wryly at the dusky sky. "I never thought I'd wish myself stupid, but here we are."

The light laughter in her mind follows her back into this home of hers.

She wakes in the middle of the night to sudden silence. The clock by her bed has stopped again, the absence of the steady whir of gears and the tick of changing movements waking her. She slumps back into her pillow, mumbling curses sleepily and trying to decide if she can get back to sleep or not.

It doesn't take her very long to decide no. She slips out of bed and into her robe and slippers quickly despite the absence of a chill. She doesn't bother with lights as she pads up the stairs to her music room, hands shoved firmly in her robe pockets and head bowed.

At around four in the morning she realizes that she's learnt all of her beginner's sheet music that had been tucked into the basket next to her piano and that a poached egg with a cup of tea really wouldn't be amiss.

With a sigh, more content than despondent this time, she stretches out her arms as she pads back down to her room and out into the halls, not bothering to dress properly and only pausing to snatch up her clock. It's far too early for her housemate, as it were, to be awake and she's curious to see what the old girl can make of her stupid clock.

Which would be why, when she pushes the kitchen door open to the lights on and the comfortable sound of something frying and a slight scent of good quality black tea, she stops in the doorway and gapes. For there, leaning lazily against their (and how easy the phrase comes to mind these days, she chides herself) kitchen counter, chin in one hand and spatula in the other, is her housemate of sorts.

He doesn't quite grasp her presence for a moment and she takes the brief seconds to fully absorb the fact that he owns other clothes than his customary suit. Other clothes that do, in fact, include what appear to be pajama pants. Her first instinct is to quietly back out of the kitchen and shut the door, all of her submissive alarm bells ringing at her intrusion on such a domestic scene.

But then he looks over at her and fully realizes that she's standing in the kitchen doorway looking alarmed and slightly panicked and her alarm is echoing through to his mind. Then there's no escape but full-out flight and all she can do is swallow hard and try not to look wide-eyed.

He gives her a steady, pensive look for a moment before reaching out with one foot and hooking a chair out from the table. That's it. Doesn't urge her to stay, doesn't move, doesn't make to close the kitchen door, just pulls out a chair and returns to watching his pan sizzle.

She slips into the kitchen properly, sets her clock on the table, and goes to fetch herself a mug and investigate the kettle.

She is, she reflects as they settle at the table with cups of tea, a plate of jammy dodgers, and a fried egg each, becoming very used to using the words comfortable, their, and home. It makes her want to cry for just a moment as she watches him mix bites of biscuit and egg. Not so much for the new sense of comfort, a sense she'd missed for a very long time indeed, or the lovely feeling of belonging to a unit of sorts again, but for the creeping sensation that always sneaks up in these moments. It tells her that one day, she will have to leave, that one day this home will leave her behind as well and that she may never find another source of comfort this time around.

And her shield isn't up, she realizes belatedly as her eyes water and he abruptly fixes her with that one look that speaks volumes. She throws about five different blocks up and blinks, rubbing at one eye. "Tired," she mumbles as explanation.

He makes like he believes her and points at her clock with his fork. "Why's your clock on the table?" Just like that, they're having early morning munchies in the kitchen again.

She shrugs, nudging it towards him. "It's gone and stopped again. I was going to go see what the old girl thought of it."

"Again?" He arches an eyebrow but doesn't quite reach out and take the thing. She can practically see the gears turning, whimsically imagines his hand twitching towards his sonic screwdriver.

She sips her tea, lets him twitch in genius agony for a few moments more with a tiny smile. "Yeah, about every two weeks or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Usually I whack it real good and reset it, but it's getting pretty obnoxious."

He reaches out and snags it then, turning it this way and that before looking up incredulously. "I never did fix it for you, did I?"

She laughs at that, nose wrinkling up and everything. "Nope." And she says the word so fondly and full of indulgent amusement that there is really nothing left to do but lay her head on the table and watch him futz with her clock.


	11. Part 3: Piece 1

**Part 3: The Turn**

**Piece One**

She's asleep by the time he finishes with her clock. He quietly collects the dishes and sets them in the sink for morning, slipping the extra biscuits into the jar before turning back to their soundly sleeping Companion. Her mind is open, calm and sleeping soundly, and it takes only the slightest touch of his hand and his mind to get her to wrap her arms helpfully around his neck as he picks her up from her chair. He doesn't realize until they're standing at her bedroom door that she inadvertently twisted her mind round his as well.

It's not the first time he's had to put a Companion to bed after a long day, not even the first time he's carried one of his girls in his arms, but it just might be the first time one of them touched his mind back. He shakes his head ever so slightly, lips quirking as he looks down at her.

He manages, with careful prodding of her unconscious mind, to get her out of her robe and into bed, tucked in amongst her covers. She twitches ever so slightly awake at the loss of warmth, but he soothes her back into sleep with a gentle touch on her mind while he pulls her clock out again.

He suspects that she needs to hear the clock to sleep properly, a habit that makes him wonder a bit. His suspicions are confirmed when, after a long moment crouching by her bed futzing with the settings, he sets the thing next to her head on her nightstand and she curls up towards the subtle mechanical sound of time passing.

It isn't until he's almost to the door that he sees her drawings. A few careful watercolors are tacked up by the doorframe and in the half-light of the dim hallway he can make out the orange sky. His orange sky.

He hesitates outside her door for a moment, listening. The room behind the door is quiet, excepting her ticking clock.

He turns, leaving the corridor to sleep a little longer. Precisely the amount of time it takes to make two cups of tea, eat a biscuit, and try to decide if he'd like to have a conversation.

No, he decides, he wouldn't. It will come up eventually, maybe, maybe not. Like it or not, though, he realizes mostly to himself, this will make it harder to send her home. He decides not to think about that either. He's that kind of man this time around, especially now.

But when he reaches her door again, it's not quiet. He arches an eyebrow at the door for a moment before looking to the ceiling. _I could have sworn I didn't give her that_.

The old girl remains suspiciously quiet, only confirming that indeed, he had nothing to do with Megan's sheet music, at least not this piece weaving and winding through the hallway. This is older, more complex, music that's more than auditory.

Good gods, he hasn't heard this played in decades, if he's counting linearly.

He pushes open her door, not bothering to notice if she'd had it locked or not. He trusts that the old girl wouldn't let him work his usual tricks if this particular girl decided to lock him out. She is, apparently, getting more privileges than anyone else he can recall.

The door to her music room stands open. The music stumbles, restarts, stumbles again. He can hear her cursing lowly, then carefully fingering through the notes. He takes the stairs one at a time, carefully and as quietly as he can.

As he stands at the top of the stairs, leaning casually in the doorway waiting for her to notice him, she starts the passage over again and manages it. Her head is tilted slightly to the side and he's fairly certain that her eyes are closed, from the way she's swaying ever so slightly.

It takes him a second to realize what she's managed and the old girl realizes it before he does, making a quiet little noise of surprise in the back of his mind. The melody has another dimension to it, a mental layer thrown directly into the mind and bypassing the auditory system entirely.

He exhales slowly.

She startles, breaking the melody abruptly and twisting on the bench to look at him. "Oh! I didn't realize you were there." She colors and gestures to the piano. "I finished all the basic things and borrowed some sheet music from the library, a few things that looked interesting. Sorry, was that alright?"

He just shakes his head, moving to sit in one of the windows. "It's fine. How did you know to play it like that?"

She gives him a quizzical look. "I just played it the way it made sense. I can't read any of the notations, the old girl won't translate it for me, but it just worked the way I played it. I can tell if I'm getting it wrong; it jangles all over."

He doesn't tell her that Romana couldn't even manage to play that piece properly, even with being able to read the notations. And having the proper genetics.


	12. Part 3: Piece 2

**Piece Two**

He wonders about her, sometimes. Times like this, when she's absorbed into another novel she's found in the library, her finger running across the page as she reads, letting the old girl make the swirls and rounds of his language into the sharps and dips of hers. She knows so much about him, more, he's realizing, than he had originally thought. And yet he's seen so little of her.

A thought, he realizes abruptly, that someone could take either way, were they so inclined. He glares at the ceiling and hears the soft snicker in the back of his mind hitch and continue. The old girl knows his soft spot for his companions. And keeps hoping that one day he'll make her an aunt. Grandmother. Stepmother. There isn't a human word for what she's become over the ages.

Regardless. He wonders about this girl he's picked up this time around. Normally his companions are fairly open books. He meets families at some point or another, finds out their hopes and dreams, they spill out their histories and lives in aimless chatter and confessions. But not her.

He sprawls backwards, lying across the metal grating he's never found uncomfortable but she claims hurts her skin "like little teeth are eating me oh my god" with his hands under his head. And looks at her.

She's changed her clothes, he's starting to realize. Abandoned the baggy sweaters and jeans for tailored sundresses, low-cut blouses and full skirts. He chooses to think she's just getting more comfortable here, the old girl hisses things like dressing up and trying to impress.

She has her little spot in the console room, where she spends most of her time when he's tinkering. She's spread a thick blanket out, thrown a few small pillows down, and it keeps her there but out of his way. Lying on her stomach, feet in the air, finger on her book. Polka dotted skirt slipping up the backs of her thighs as she shifts slightly, showing the two little black stripes on the tops of her white thigh-highs.

"You're staring at me and it's freaking me out just a little." Her voice breaks his train of thought (not a moment too soon, he thinks) and he can hear her smile even though she doesn't look up. Feel her laughter on his skin.

"What's your favorite color?"

Then she does look up, closes her book, shifts onto her side to face him. "It changes. I've never been able to pick one properly. I like all the dark colors, all the properly not girly ones. And silver over gold." She looks at him, all calculation in her eyes. "What's yours?"

"Blue." He answers promptly, grinning at her, and she laughs. That a nine-hundred-and-some year old man would have an easier time picking a favourite color than her.

"Hey-" She sticks her head into his office and starts, only to meet his gaze as he does the same and have both of them laugh. "Jinx. Me first?" He nods his acquiescence, putting his pen down and laying his papers aside. "I was wondering if you would mind getting me some seeds next time you stop off somewhere semi-normal. I was thinking about trying to grow some peas. Those are easy, right?"

He grins at her and she can taste his smugness on her tongue as he stands and comes around his desk to lean against it and regard her. "I have one better. I need to run an errand I thought you might want to come along for. Do a bit of window-shopping, restock the pantry, the lot. We'll be parked for a few days at least."

It took all her self-control to merely nod and grin a little stupidly at him. She was sure he could taste her emotions, just as she could his, he had never taken that link down after all, but the subterfuge was important.

She knew what the offer meant, even if he wasn't going to say it.


	13. Part 3: Piece 3

**Piece 3**

It was spring in Wales, apparently. Or so he had warned her over tea that morning.

And indeed, it seemed to be true as they stepped together, her hand resting gently in the crook of his arm, out of the Tardis. He in one of his suits (the one she found most flattering, with one of his brighter ties she seemed to remember complementing at one point, she noticed) and his trainers, his long stride excited and puppy-ish against hers; her in his old blazer over a blouse and jeans, a combination he had eyed skeptically but with a modicum of interest as she walked into the room. She had run a hand through her hair (a habit not at all curbed by their cohabitation) and smiled at him mildly.

She liked stealing his old clothes and clearly he wasn't going to say anything about it.

He evidently wasn't in any hurry to run his mysterious errand he refused to tell her anything about, as he let her lead the way for the next few hours. She had never been to Wales, always wanted to. The fact that it wasn't hers made little difference; the fact that it was his almost made it better.

And she had missed home more than she realized.

True, it wasn't her rainy little island. But they had coffee. And the taste of a professionally pulled shot, the jolt of caffeine through the blood-brain barrier, suddenly made her wonder what she was missing.

About as much there as she was here, probably, she thinks wryly as she notices him check his watch (since when had he had a watch) and grin at the ground slightly. He tries to rearrange his expression into something less suspiciously gleeful and almost manages.

She looks at him disparagingly. "You realize I can taste your ridiculous happiness."

"And I can taste your coffee." He snips back at her, mimicking her tone in a way she had long gotten used to him doing. Like a five year old sometimes, that man was.

She obediently threads her hand through the crook of his arm again and lets him lead as they walk through the soft sunlight, his footsteps again doing that excited hop-skip thing he did when he couldn't quite bring himself to slow down and match her pace.

She can tell when he starts to wait for her to recognize it, but her mind is too busy staring at the mirrored tower in awe. "Torchwood," she breathes. The word is almost lost in the sound of rushing water coming from the fountain tower.

He squeezes her arm to get her attention and nods towards the pair approaching across the plass from the other side. A tall man, dark hair, long coat, and a rather shorter woman, in a smart trench and sensible jumper. She doesn't even realize she's recognized them until she's already turning to him, eyes wide. "They aren't…"

He grins. "They are."

They don't move. He makes no motion to drag her forward to meet them and she is just too struck by everything, by this whole day, this whole moment here in Cardiff with _those two_ crossing towards her, back to Torchwood Three, back to a world she's seen and known but never been to. It is too much.

So she stands there, hand clutching anxiously at the crook of his arm, and he lets her, mind brushing up against hers and connecting them more firmly.

And they wait.

Sarah Jane sees them before Jack does. She stops abruptly, mid-step, and Jack, too used to being Torchwood, only takes a half-step past that. And recognizes the deep, hopeful, sad, overjoyed expression on her face before she can say it out loud.

He's back. Flitted back into their lives for a few days again, to check in and fix what he can and leave them with fresh memories.

He reaches for Sarah's arm and tucks it through his own, pulling her into step with him as they stride more purposefully across to the waiting pair. They will do this, just as they always do, with a welcome and a smile and relish it for what it is. A small flash of joy and wonder in a world quickly becoming more intense.

They're a few yards away when he feels Sarah squeeze his arm and looks at her questioningly, only to have her tilt her head slightly towards the pair. He looks.

The Doctor is smiling fondly, with maybe a touch of something else in his eyes. And the girl at his side, the young woman as ginger as that man ever wanted to be and dressed in a jacket he's sure he saw in the wardrobe once, is making an expression he's sure he brushed off his face not a minute before.

Megan doesn't follow them into the Hub. She isn't ready to meet everyone, to look them in the eye and act like this is fine. Because, she is realising abruptly, it isn't.

She sighs, shifting on the railing and swinging a foot idly. She can feel him, worried, in her mind. She wants to tell him the truth, but they haven't talked about long term plans and it would be...complex.

She doesn't want to end up as just another one of his girls. And she knows she will.

She can feel Sarah Jane coming before she hears footsteps and obligingly pulls her mind back into herself. The older woman pushes herself up onto the railing without any of the trite pleasantries and for a moment they sit there in silence.

"Did he tell you about me?"

Sarah grins. "A little. Just enough to explain." They watch a child splash through the fountain. "Another universe, huh? And a show on telly?" She laughed a bit. "I don't even want to think how many daft things I must've said back then."

"You were brilliant. I wanted to grow up to be you." Megan looks at her sideways, quirking a hesitant smile. "Still do."

"You know if anything happens, you can come find Jack or I. We'd take you in and sort you out." The offer is made without hesitation and Megan's eyes water as she looks over at Sarah. "I mean it. We'll take care of you. Now come on, the boys must be missing us." And she slipped off the railing, offering a hand to Megan.

She takes it and feels like a little girl again, holding her mum's hand and feeling so safe.

It takes them a full day to tell her why they are really here.

"So, we're going then?" Jack is sitting in his office, feet up on the desk, and the Doctor is perched beside them. His face is pensive, tone worried. Megan pauses in the doorway, waiting on them to notice her.

"You've been invited. And given the history, it would be best to keep a close eye on big events like this."

"Are we leaving the girls here?"

Megan steps into the office, arching an eyebrow. "Are we leaving me behind for what, exactly?"

Both men look startled and perhaps a little guilty. "No, I think they would be a help." The Doctor grins at her, stepping closer to take her hands. "Torchwood One has been rebuilt. They're having a memorial gala, to celebrate their recovery."

"Of all the terrible ideas." She looks past him, to Jack. "I take it the new management seems at best marginally better than the old?"

He laughs, smiling. "A little less crazy, if we're lucky."

"Well then, we have to go." And her voice is braver than her heart and she knows her Doctor can feel it, trembling against his hands.

She brings Sarah back to the Tardis with her, leaving the Doctor there planning with Jack. It is odd, she realises, being so at home in a place that used to be someone else's home, in another version. She says as much as she unlocks the door with a thought to the old girl and steps inside, hanging up her coat on the rack and slipping out of her shoes.

Sarah laughs. "Oh, it was never my home. Not really. I was always on holiday here, like staying in a hotel room." She strips off her coat and shoes, grinning. "Now, come on, show me around. I want to see how it's changed."

They stroll through the Tardis, peeking in on the library, the gardens, his study (where Megan sighs heavily and collects a stack of teacups), the kitchen (to drop off the teacups and put the kettle on), and finally they step into Megan's suite. Megan bustles ahead, dropping off her purse by her desk and heading for the staircase. "Come on, you want to see the music room."

"My god, Megan." Sarah was standing in the doorway, mouth agape. "You're not one of us, even a little bit. You're something else."

She pauses, turning back, looking embarrassed. "So I wasn't making things up, then. No one else had rooms like this."

Sarah shakes her head. "Sweetheart, Rose didn't have rooms like this."

They stand for a moment, Sarah still shaking her head and Megan not sure what to make of that…or the fact that the Tardis had never told her.

The old girl is noticeably absent from her mind that afternoon, as she sits with Sarah and they share tea and talk about dresses and their lives. Sarah's had her share of adventures in her little corner of suburban life and she laughs it off as she tells fragments of stories. Megan just sighs.

As afternoon turns to evening, she reaches out for the Doctor, lightly knocking on his mind. She's excused herself to the bathroom and she leans against the counter in preparation. Slipping against his mind has always been a little more than she can handle and it never quite grows normal.

He opens up and she can feel/see him pause, hold up a hand, and turn away from Jack as he lets her in. _Hello, you._ And she feels his grin, the slight pride in the back of his mind that she is managing such a tight connection over the distance.

She smirks at her reflection, feeling proud of herself for managing to impress him. _Coming home for dinner?_

He sighs heavily, only internally, and gives her a glimpse of blueprints and memorandums. _Not likely. You could come join us?_

She shakes her head, leaning against the wall. She doesn't like spending the time apart but knows that they need the time to plan. _No, you two need to work. I'll ask Sarah if she'd like to stay over._

_Good. I'll try to wrap up for the night while you're still awake, but don't wait up. One of us needs to sleep._ He's grinning again, already anticipating her response.

She shoves him mentally and he laughs, pushing her back. _Silly thing, you need to sleep too. Now go on. Go do your thing. Remember to eat!_

He presses a brief burst of affection through their link as he breaks it and her knees nearly buckle. She takes a moment to breath and let her cheeks fade back to normal coloring before she steps back out to Sarah and the older woman still arches an eyebrow knowingly.

She just blushes and coughs, gathering up her sketching things and returning them to her desk.

Sarah declines to stay the night and Megan nods her acquiescence, understanding the unspoken. It would be a little heartbreaking, just a little too weird. So they wave goodbye and Megan shuts the door, turning back to the console.

"So you've been awfully quiet today, lovely."

_Just giving you your space_. The old girl is brisk, but cheerful. Megan arches an eyebrow and runs a hand over the console lovingly as she passes, goes to collapse onto her blanket and lean into her mess of pillows she keeps there.

They sit in silence for a moment before Megan smiles sadly and looks up at the blue column. "You know he'll always love you better. There's no worry of that." There is a scrambling feeling in her mind, a rush of worry and guilt, but she keeps talking, absently. "You're his Tardis. You'll be there forever. I'm just another Companion and I'll be gone home soon anyways. You know as well as I do that I've been well and truly trained for a week or so here. Well enough to be sent home, anyways."

There is a long, heavy silence. Megan sniffs, picking at a bit of fuzz on the blanket. "I don't want to go home, old girl. I swore I would accept it, that I wouldn't do this, but I suppose I couldn't help it."

_You are home, Megs._

She looks up at the ceiling, eyes watering. "You and I both know that can't be true."


	14. Part 3: Piece 4

**Piece 4**

"Oh lord I look ridiculous." Megan turns, frowning at her reflection. "And fat. Lord, when did I get so fat?"

_You look lovely. Stop fussing._

"Well I feel fat and ridiculous." She glares at the ceiling. "This was a stupid idea. I am blaming you."

_You do what you like, sweetheart, but you look beautiful and as soon as you quit fussing and leave your room he'll tell you the same._

She pulls a face at her reflection, fussing with the organza layers. The taffeta hangs in a neat a-line to her ankles, no matter what she does, but the organza is inherently messy and it bothers her ever so slightly. "Only because I look like you." She knows she's being sulky and childish. Even though the deep blue color does match, only slightly on purpose.

_You're hopeless. _The old girl's voice is full of fond exasperation and the tiniest hint of laughter and Megan can't help but crack a smile as she takes one last look in the mirror, adjusts the organza again, frowns at her makeup, and sighs.

"Well, I suppose it's not getting any better." She grins playfully at the ceiling and gets a long-suffering sigh in reply. She just laughs.

They're all waiting outside for her, their breath just fogging, lit by the streetlight above the Tardis. Jack looks vaguely uncomfortable, his normal greatcoat shrugged on over a tuxedo, and the Doctor is leaning against the lamppost looking all too at ease. She notes with some amusement that he's refused to wear proper shoes and only exchanged his normal converse for black ones.

Pointing this out, however, gets her absolutely nothing but help putting her coat on and him cheerfully twirling her around with a laugh.

The party is almost normal. Champagne, small sandwiches, small cakes, more champagne. It's the device in the middle of the dance floor that everyone is carefully waltzing around and ignoring that gives it away.

And she knows, just knows, that things are going to go bad.

They go worse.

She's standing there in her dress and heels, carefully taking apart the weapon Jack gave her and putting it back together just as smoothly. Later she will be able to do this with her mind, there will be blood on her dress.

"No guns." He's standing by her side suddenly, a hand on hers, on the gun.

She gives him a look and tucks it into the band of her dress. "I know your thing about guns, but this isn't our normal big bad out there. From where I stand, it's a whole mess of ugly and claws and us with no defence making like a delicious snack. So unless you have some insight you would care to share, I'm going to protect these people. Us. And you."

He pinches his face up in the expression she's coming to recognise as the face he makes when he knows she's mostly right and nods. "I'm trying my way first. Then you can play cowboys and aliens all you like."

She grins and that's that.

Until he's lying on the ground bleeding like there'll be no tomorrow and the world's going slightly black and white and she's taking shots and running at the same time and behind her she can hear one of the young men scream. God damn poison spines.

Everything stops. Just for a second. She kneels beside him, brushing his hair back, and feels for his mind. It's too deep and she forgets to breathe. Then the old girl is a hot presence in her mind, pushing her body into action and then the whole world speeds up, goes all colors and blinding white. She screams.

The gun lies forgotten on the floor.

"Augh, god, I'm alive." The words came out slightly more garbled than she would have really liked and something about her visual cortex seemed off, more searing blinding pain than usual, but her mind was already full steam ahead, tripping and tumbling over itself. If she was alive, than...

And her mind was flying, skimming the mental plane. "Woah, what the-" And she slammed back into her body, mind still screaming through data and input. She was alive, the building was standing, Sarah Jane and Jack were fine, all the civilians and most of the personnel were as well, the Doctor-her mind hitched and slowed abruptly. A coma, wounds treated, healing well, hadn't regenerated, not fatal, should wake.

_I see you're awake, then._

_What did you do to my brain? Oh-_ She fell again, the images flickering through her quicker than she could quite process.

She lay there, breathing heavily, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

Then she laughed and shook her head, muttering, "oh, he's going to be right angry." The old girl laughed in her mind, all silver and stars, and she lay back in the pillows of her infirmary bed, taking the moment.

It takes a few hours before Jack comes to get her. She squirms enough to get her chart off the end of her bed, nearly dislodging at least three of of the sensor stickers on her chest and stomach and actually dislodging the clip on her finger for a few seconds and one angry beep.

It tells her, in scrawling handwriting, that she fell unconscious after an "extreme psychic exertion" in addition to being stabbed by three separate poisoned spikes from the creature. She didn't remember those. It must have been while the old girl was mostly in control of her mind.

The spikes had apparently been little more than a painful method of delivering a nice low level poison, easily remedied by a general antidote. Three had been easy to fix. She winced to think of the men and women she had seen speared by ten or more. Hopefully they had made it.

Then she lay back, the monitor beeping, and dozed. She dreamed of white and blinding and pain before she woke to soothing in her mind and only the dull ache of her wounds healing. She dreamed of waltzing slowly in the ballroom, before things went bad, her Doctor's hand on her lower back, his humming winding absently through her head. He was so warm against her, so comforting and solid and _hers _in that moment that she sighed in her sleep and burrowed deeper in the hospital sheets.

Jack wakes her gently, smiling wearily at her. He looks tired. She starts to stretch, winces as pain shoots through her side, and settles for sitting up carefully. "How are things?"

He settles into the chair he tugs over. "Things are...being handled. If I can get a doctor in here and tell me you're fine so you can help, things would be better. But for now, they're being handled. The director came around once he got the injured count, so he's providing the clout and I'm just driving things in the right direction." Jack smiled a little. "They're not bad people anymore, which is nice. They just got stupid in a bad way."

"People do that," she says a little wearily. "Now, let's get me out of here. Go find a doctor. If ours is awake, go get me him."

And he laughs at that, a real smiling laugh and she grins, a grin she knows she's picked up from the Doctor, and waves him imperiously out of the room.

Jack does not return with their Doctor, but he does return with Sarah and the Doctor's coat and sonic screwdriver and a bustling physician who examines her pupils and responses and then signs her off, warning her to "be careful not to move around too much."

She realises as she pulls the sheets back that she's wearing a hospital gown and that her party dress was probably ruined by the blood. Sarah frowns. "We should have gone and gotten some you some proper clothes."

"I'm a little underdressed to save the world, yeah. Hang on, I wonder…" and she settles on the edge of the bed, closes her eyes, and reaches out.

_Hello, love._

_Hey, beautiful. I need some clothes. Think maybe you could help me out?_

And the Tardis laughs in her head and she grins in spite of herself. She has no idea how this will work or if it even can. She's never seen the Doctor do it. But she's seen him pilot a million times at least. _Just _see_ what you want to do._

So she does. The knob turning, the buttons being pressed, the levers being flipped. Slowly, painstakingly, then faster and more comfortably and then she could hearfeel the whoosh and she laughed and bounded out of her bed, grabbing his coat out of Jack's hands and leaving them to dash after her.

The noise-feeling leads her down the halls and then she's throwing a door open and there she is, the beautiful old girl and there he is, her beautiful man so pale and dark against the hospital sheets that she can't breathe.

Then Sarah is at her side, rubbing her back and steering her towards the Tardis and saying "let's go get you a shower and new clothes and a cup of tea and then we can tackle the rest of the world."

Jack just follows them silently.

The holes in her back are really actually very painful, she admits to herself in the shower as she scrubs very gently. She feels every kind of worn and tired, but she still has a tower to put back into order and people to check on and someone has to until he can wake up. If he wakes up, her heart whispers, and she starts to hyperventilate a little.

It isn't until the Tardis practically shouts in her mind _If you pass out there is no one I can call! _that she can snap back into herself, shut the water off, and drag herself out of the shower to breathe more carefully slumped over the counter.

There are dark circles under her eyes as she dries her hair and braids it back.

Sarah has tea waiting for her and Jack has brought her a dossier to catch her up to speed. And as she shrugs a jumper over her blouse and settles down to be the Doctor for the day because that's what the companion does, it seems like maybe it'll be okay.

It is three in the morning when she finally stumbles back into the Tardis to make tea again. They've spent the large part of the day rewriting Torchwood policies. The head of HR is handling the debriefing of the guests with the head of Security, but someone has to settle this nonsense once and for all and who better than the three of them. And she is so tired of reading fancy legal documents that mean nothing more than permission to hunt down and kill her Doctor and her Tardis.

So she makes herself a cup of tea and goes to stand in the doorway of the Tardis and watch him sleep.

And then he sits up and looks at her and says "Hello."


	15. Part 3: Piece 5

**Piece 5**

Megan gapes for an unflattering amount of time. He just grins at her. "How long was I out for?"

"Almost a full day, I think. I was out for some of it, so I'm not really sure how long it was. It's all a bit of a blur."

"How many?" She knows he's asking how many died, with his face so solemn, and she takes a lot of joy in being able to grin at him and say:

"None."

He visibly relaxes and she finally crosses the room, nudging him to move his legs enough to make room for her as she perches on his bed. "No one?"

"Not a single person. Oh, there are plenty that'll have a hell of a time for the next few weeks until the wounds heal. But they'll all be fine." She extends her hand and he takes it automatically. When she reaches out with her mind he lets her in and for a moment they feel their worry combine.

Then he pulls back and stares at her, shocked. "Good god."

"Yeah," she says sheepishly. "She told me. It's just one thing after another, isn't it."

"Show me."

She closes her eyes and it takes a moment, but he hears a faint clatter and then a wobbling teacup comes floating out to him. He takes it, feeling the moment when she releases it by the sudden press of china plate into his hand. She smiles, hesitant and nervous. "I'm pretty rubbish at it. But it's not that much different from telepathy. Just….seeing things. Instead of thinking them."

"I can't even do that." He looks a little put out.

"Apparently it's a side effect of her possessing me temporarily. We're not sure if it'll wear off."

"She possessed you?" The look on his face just begs her to say no, just joking, this day didn't just get even weirder.

"Kindof? I guess? I don't remember a lot. You were unconscious. And then everything just went white. And then I woke up. Jack tells me that I destroyed that thing from the inside out. Just ripped it apart into a nice fine monster dust." She takes a deep breath. It's still really overwhelming to remember him laying there so still. "And the old girl tells me that she basically took over my mind and did it all. So I guess that's what happened. We all made it out, so I guess I don't really care."

He nods, slowly, at that and sips his tea. She stares at him a minute and then takes his teacup and puts it with hers on the table by his bed so she can turn and snuggle down beside him, his arm over her shoulders and her head tucked against his chest, listening to the thump-echo of his two hearts.

"Everyone lives," she murmurs and she can feel him laugh before he nods.

"Everyone lives."

"It's my birthday in a week," she says to him from his doorway as he chooses a tie. It's the first time she's seen his bedroom, the first time the Tardis has allowed her down that hallway, but when she had set out from her own room with that intention the old girl had led her there. And he had opened the door with a grin when she knocked.

"I know. This one or the other?" He holds up two ties and she picks the one on the left, the one with blue swirls that she loves. "We'll need a cake. Do you want to order one or bake your own?"

"My own, I think. We'll need flour and things." She straightens his tie as he comes up to her and then buttons his blazer for him, smoothing the fabric down. His hand settles at the small of her back as they head down the hall. They've both been touching more, now, as if neither can believe what happened.

She knows she can't.

She's pouring over Torchwood's charter again, revising in red pen for what feels like the hundredth time and is probably only the fifth when Sarah settles down next to her. They're in the Director's private conference room and the table is spread with papers and reports. Jack and the Doctor are across from them, muttering to each other about the debriefing reports.

"So it's your birthday next week, then?"

Megan nods and makes another note before the question sinks in and she looks up. "He told you, then?" She isn't annoyed, just surprised. Very surprised.

"Jack and I, yes. We wanted to ask you if you would consider spending it here. With all of us." The older woman is nervous, twisting her hands in her lap. And in a flash, Megan realises what this means.

"Of course."

Of course she will spend her birthday here, with her new family.

"You should go see your father," he says as they move the Tardis back to outside Torchwood Three, back to Cardiff.

"I'm not going home yet." She looks up at him, begging. "Not yet, right?"

"We've still got a birthday to plan for you, silly girl. Of course not yet. But we should go see him. You're still young, he needs this." His hand is rubbing circles on her back, the comfort of it seeping into her mind.

"Now?" They have a few hours before Jack and Sarah take the train back. She knows it doesn't matter, but it helps her to schedule still.

"Why not?" And he grins, that devil may care grin all over.

"What's wrong?" He's stopped moving, staring at the console screen. He never stops moving until they land and she can't feel the pressure on her mind that means a new world.

"I can't….No, this can't be right."

"What, Doctor?" She stands, pushes herself up, and reaches out for the old girl in the same motion. _Lovely, what's going on?_

_We can't get through. We can't get back._

"I can't take you home. It's closing. Slowly, but it's already too tight for the Tardis." His face is panicked, tense, and all she can do is gape at him.

"So I'm stuck here? I can't ever go home?"

"We've got time for one message. If you want."

And she shakes herself. She has to say goodbye. She has to. "Yes. Of course."

A few minutes later she's standing in the middle of the room, staring at the staticky screen showing her living room. Showing her father staring at the flickering illusion of her. "Hey daddy."

"I don't have a lot of time. The space the Doctor came through to get there….it's closing for some reason. We don't know why. Maybe it's just natural. But I can't come home. Not now. Maybe not ever."

"I love you. So so much. And I'll miss you like hell. But I'll be happy here, I promise. I love it here. It's so much more than I ever imagined."

"And I love him. I really do. I almost lost him the other day and it nearly killed me. So I'm not unhappy. I'll be fine. I've got him and the Tardis and Sarah and Jack and everyone."

"Just promise me you'll be okay. I love you so much. I'm so sorry I can't come home, daddy."

And she watches him say "I love you too, Meggie. I promise." And then the scree is all static and she stares blankly a minute before her legs just give out and she's sitting in the middle of the console room starting to sob.

**The end.**


End file.
